The Seductress II
by Devilzzz
Summary: Virginia Riddle will change the game -- and will bring a whole new meaning to hell. Part Two of The Seductress.
1. Part I

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The Seductress

Part I

The Beginning

The book was gone. Ginny noticed it was gone that weekend, while she was rummaging through her drawers, a strange ambition rising in her chest and gnawing at her skin, waiting to see it again. And yet -- it was gone. The most unusual fact of it all was that so was the red ribbon. At first, she convinced herself she had misplaced it somewhere. Surely someone had not taken it -- the worst scenario she could imagine was Draco finding it and throwing it away. But that was impossible. Draco had already left on an important matter for two weeks. And she would've seen, known if he had taken it.

But would she? How could he ever think to erase the past that had linked them together? Could he really throw it away? Could he really even think to? Ginny lay a palm against her stomach, feeling her heartbeat falter as she sat down at the edge of the bed, taking sharp, deep breaths.

Draco was gone. He had not seen the book. Nor the ribbon. He didn't know that they were once in her possession. A need, a strength so dire made her reach out her hand, letting her fingers wave failingly toward the air of nowhere, calling for something that never existed.

~

"Are you not, satisfied, Virginia?" The Healer stood on his feet, glaring at her. "Are you not satisfied?"

Virginia took the hemline of her dress and swung it below her knees, letting him bathe his eyes on her glory. She slipped the strands off her shoulders and left them protruding at her feet, a scowl erupting on her face. "Of course I am," she said, dead-prone with a strained smile across her face.

The Healer could tell something was wrong, and his presence was not helping matters. "Are we going to make love already?" he asked, surprised at her movements. "I thought we could handle more serious subjects."

"And making love to me is not a serious subject?" she queried with a raise of her eyebrows. Her lips were as red as black blood, and she let them curl into a caressed line of her lips. 

"I didn't say that," the Healer started to say, but she held up a hand.

"Do you want someone more youthful, I presume?" she asked, with a quiver of her chin. "Is that what you want? Someone more youthful? Perhaps -- what's that virgin's name?" she laughed. "Ginny?"

The Healer looked truly insulted at this. "All I want is you, Seductress."

Virginia motioned him over, letting his eyes sight and seek over her ivory-colored skin. "Then come."

He walked forward cautiously.

"Do not deprive from me," she said sternly. "I love you. Don't be afraid."

Her gentle prodding forced his feet forward. She touched his lips with the tip of her finger, and she angled her face toward his. 'Don't be afraid', she said silently with her eyes.

Afraid of what? he wanted to ask, but his mouth was growing dry. A raw, dry, rupturing red was plummeting in his skull -- his heartbeat seem to grow ten times larger then it was before, and the explosion withered his body profusely as he fell down to his knees, bowing his head. Groaning, he showed his only fear, his only weakness to her with the glimmer of his eyes.

Virginia lay a hand upon his forehead, as a mother would do to calculate one's illness -- and frowned.

"Don't be afraid," she whispered, as he closed his eyes and surrendered to the blinding pain.

~

Draco could feel nothing else but the darting of their eyes toward him as he walked. An iron was curling it's steel upon his throat, and he felt himself choking slightly as they gazed at him threateningly. They were unlike people he had seen before, they eyes were bulging, as if to caress every aspect of an inch of his skin, detecting whether or not his skin was bruised or purple.

If only Ginny were here, he prayed to himself. If only I had told her the truth, this wouldn't be happening.

He took a deep, shuddering breath, trying to shunt away the image of her sweet, pink-flushed lips, the feeling of her body pressed against him, the heart of hers pounding against his own. If only she was here, he could kiss her just one, single time and let her know that he was doing this for her.

And only her. He gently settled himself on his knees.

"What do you want, predator?" spat a nearby townsperson. He was the first to break the silence.

"John, don't be rude," sniffled a young woman, with the hair the color of auburn. "Let him speak."

"I--" he suddenly found himself speechless. Months of planning this, and he had a block of ice rising in his throat already. "I want to exchange."

"Exchange for what?" said a doubtful-looking mistress near him, who wore a dirty apron and a dress the size of tulips. 

You're not doing this for her, and you know it, a thought whispered.

I have to do this, he argued. I have no other choice. 

How can you be with _her_? She's foul, she's evil...

He almost choked on his own spit. His tongue rolled, evidently trying to slip out of his mouth. "I want to..."

The faces glanced at him blankly, waiting for him to speak.

But he was once again, speechless.

~

He sought the ribbons on her dress and unclasped them, one by one.

"Why don't you want the one you fell in love with?" he asked, shaking his head. 

"Because I fell in love with you--" Virginia grinned an ugly grin. 

Another ribbon faltered to the ground.

"I am in love with someone else," he pleaded.

She clicked her tongue disapprovingly. "Silly, silly boy. Do you want to be with a virgin forever?"

"She's not a virgin," he answered curtly, watching the last ribbon unfurl in it's misery and fall to the ground in a swift motion. She offered him her hair.

He pulled out the red ribbon tucked into the strands of her hair. He felt the soft silkiness of it. It was nothing like Ginny's -- no, Virginia's hair was much more lively, wavering curls side by side her shoulders.

Virginia waved her hand dismissively. "Whatever. Don't argue with me. You know what will happen if you don't follow by my rules."

"Why are you doing this? You don't love me. You're a liar. You're an evil, pathetic little --"

A slap across his face. It stung as if a knife had been sunk into him, and as if blood was already churning upside down in his veins. He wanted to spit in her gorgeous face. She might've been beautiful but she could never compare to the glow that Ginny had.

Ginny was after all, alive.

"Don't question me," Virginia said calmly, another smile penetrating her face as a breathless whisper ran down his neck -- "You will do what I say. We must stick to the plan -- otherwise..."

She pulled something out of midair, a fire in her hand, burning the tips of her fingers. But the expression on her face said it was painless for her. "This is your little virgin's soul now --" she said bitterly, the smile uplifting the corner of her precious, blood-dried lips.

She crushed the fire.

And turned it into black ashes that sunk into the between of her fingers. It made a churning, twirling noise as she rubbed her hands together greedily.

She whispered, "...and this is what it will be like then."

The ashes fell to her feet, black, and nothing else but black.

~


	2. Part II Birthday Wishes

_The Seductress_

Part II

A Deal With Lucifer

and Birthday Wishes

The days passed by in countless seconds. Ginny found herself awakening by the doorbell. Hurrying forward as she scurried into her robes, tightening them around her before she opened the door. To her surprise, there was nobody at the door. Looking down, she found herself looking down at a small, petite wrapped box with a pink bow smudged at the top. A smile threatened to fill her face.

He remembered, she whispered to herself softly.

October fifteenth was here once again. Her birthday. And Draco had sent her a present. Her birthday. She closed her eyes and fluttered them open once more, not daring it to believe it true -- that she was the age eighteen. 

She moved the box to her chest and shut the door behind her as she entered the house, tugging at the bow and watching it as it fell, sprawling it's pink, plastic ribbons on the floor tiles. Her breath trembled as she tore open the wrapping, watching as the several bits of it crumbled into pieces on the floor. She felt as if she was fourteen again, giving herself up to him, feeling his body slide, writhe in sweat across hers. She could almost feel his breath sighing at her breath again, his features, the way his lips tumbled in a tremor across her naked back, and his saliva crawling down her eyelids.

She remembered how he licked her eyelids, and made her eyelashes damp so he could brush the particles of spit off, one by one. The withering memory closed again as she opened the top cover of the box.

~

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The Seductress was swinging in her freedom, a rush of her legs, the escape of reality -- she could feel her hair sway at the ends, she could feel her fingers tingle at the wooden swing that made her feel as if she was an angel, her wings fluttering to the sky---

"Virginia!" the voice of her mother was a chord, a string, an echo as she swung. pretending not to hear her. It was far too difficult to hear a human on a day like this, the day of eternity. She would never let anything spoil her chance of being an angel --

---and breaking, feather by feather.

"Virginia, come here right now! Get off that silly swing!" her mother demanded in a sing-song voice.

Virginia set herself off her swings and prepared herself for her mother, picking at the bow at her hair, tugging down the ends of her dress so that all creases were disposed, and walked forward to her redheaded mother, who towered over her with a small smile.

"Do you know what day it is, little Virginia?" her mother cooed.

"It's my eighth birthday," Virginia promptly replied in a dead-prone voice.

"And I got you something special. I've been saving for it all year, Virginia. Don't you want to see it?" 

Virginia dug her fingernails into her palms. "Yes, mother," she seethed out of her teeth, even though she secretly wished to sink a knife into her mother's skull and let it twirl around as she burned.

Her mother was not to be undaunted, however. She turned around and picked up a small, white box from the ground. "You'll love this," she promised. "It's from Egypt. It's from the 1700's."

Virginia felt herself lick her lips, letting the moist, sickening drought of her tongue dry all the edges of her tissue and bone of the curve of her lips. "17OO's," she repeated.

"Yes." Her mother said no more as she handed the plain, white box that seemed dusty at the ends.

Virginia shoved the dust off neatly at first, and pulled off the cover in one, swift motion.

It was a doll. Her face began to fall until she saw the doll's face -- a sweet, angelic rounded face, with the prettiest blue eyes that shone in a glassy reflection, with a pink dress, legs the color of ivory, arms the same color, hair as red as blood pouring down into a pool of black, and slender fingers that seemed artistically figured. The doll seemed to real, so fragile that she felt that if she touched it, she would break it.

"You can touch it," her mother instructed. "It's yours to play with. But don't break it."

Virginia touched the pupils of the doll's eyes, and felt a burning sensation lingering at her fingertips...

"Mother!" Virginia cried, shoving the doll to her, withdrawing from her own arms. "The doll's eyes are like fire, mother, do something!"

Her mother gazed at her, aghast. "I thought you would like it!"

"Mother! It's eyes are moving!" Virginia protested.

Her mother gave an angry snarl. "Now listen here, Virginia. I paid good money for this doll." She pushed the doll into Virginia's chest firmly. "And you're going to keep it in your room."

And with that, Virginia was forced to turn around and head to the house -- and looked back at her mother shaking her head behind her in bewilderment, and yearned for the swings that were still hanging loosely by the chains in their wooden, freed haven. But when she turned back, she saw that the doll had just turned her head back too, and she now had a smile stitched across her face.

And somehow, Virginia knew it hadn't been there before.

~

"Oh," Ginny whispered, the longing sense of the word pondering off of her tongue. A dread-filled agony rose in her chest as she observed the beautiful doll.

"You're the most sweetest thing I've ever laid my eyes on," Ginny whispered, touching the doll's glassy, enticing eyes first. They felt cool and collected beneath her fingers -- for a second, she could've sworn something like fire had stung beneath her, but she felt it crash sideways and convinced herself it was only her paranoia again. Draco has outdone himself, she thought, putting the doll back into the tissues that had secured it around her in the box.

"I'll name you ---" Ginny pondered to think, her mouth parting--

What she was going to say had vanished from her mind.

She felt her chest curl in stone, her lips freeze in melted water.

There was a demand she had to follow.

The doll was expecting her to.

"...Innocence," she said.

And she could've sworn the doll had whispered it all along with her.

~

The book upturned, opening forward. As if an invisible hand was writing upon it, scribbled words were beginning to scrawl through the blank pages of it's hearth. 

~

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The Seductress

page 890

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Lucifer turned to her with a wavering smile. "What do you offer me? And what do I offer you?"

Virginia clung into her red dress, her voice dead-prone. "I have killed my lover."

"Have you, really?" Lucifer questioned in a disbelieving voice. "Well, well."

"I can offer you many things," The Seductress prompted, smiling at him, licking her lips so that they were a moist, clear pinkish-flushed strip of skin and tissue. The curve of her bones seemed to move as she walked toward him in silence. When she reached the gap between them, she dared to put a palm at his chest, trying to feel his non-existent heart.

"And what do I give you for those many things?" he asked, breathless in spite of himself. The color of red eyes, the flush of her lips, the red in her cheeks and the beautiful, woven, blood-stained fabric she wore. It was a most unusual dress, small and tiny, and barely reached beyond her knees. He got the emotion that it belonged to someone else, as it didn't sink into her like second skin as most of her other clothes did.

"Absolutely," Virginia spoke at last, after a moment's pause, her lips upturning in a cruel tremor -- "Nothing."

~

Sorry for the lack of Draco/Ginny.

I am getting there :)...

Now, for things to ponder:

1) What is the purpose of the doll?

2) What does Draco have to do?

3) ...who is Lucifer, exactly? Is he _the_ Lucifer? Or is he completely different?

I love to shock people, you know.

Till next time,

-S.A. Court

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	3. Part III Lucifer's Bride

_The Seductress_

Part III

Lucifer's Bride-To-Be

The Death Rocker was a knife.

It stood tall and lanky, with a sharp curve at the end -- something that could sink into skin and rip it apart, shred by shred. The jewels embarked upon the handle was a loose, sloped appearance of the jewels, four of them in all, representing one, single thing each. The color silver, glimmered in it's glory, a diamond that was faded, it looked like when closely examined. You could almost feel the emotion that came from it - hatred, clear, blunt, and vain. Empty as pure water, empty as blood. The color gold represented the only thing it could; faith. The color of violet that shone it's lukewarm lavender represented birth, the importance of it.. And there it was -- red. The color of all sins, the color of blood, but the color of something you never would think it would be --- innocence.

It could splatter blood, surrender the senses. And with a pull of an infant's fingers, with the folds of skin that belonged to the only purity a baby could provide with red blood that looked violet amongst the creases of veins, a baby who was newly born--with one single tug of purity, the knife would unfurl itself from the stone that availed it's poison across the quarters of rough hardness--poison that with one touch, sniff, feeling and look could kill you, unless you represented pure blood, a blood from the care of youth, for as the baby cries from plunging from the womb, it would be settled on it's backside on the stone that the knife was stuck once stuck upon -- the stone that filled with poison as well, stripped to it's single, particle of rock. The baby would take the knife out with one, swift pull, and the baby's eyes would meet the end of the knife, it's backside still gliding across the poison of the stone, the end of the knife that drooped with dried creases of blood that still uncurled itself like snakes uncoiling and meeting at the end, like the petals of a rose, spelling out one single, name: Lucifer.

~

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The Seductress,

page 267

His letters were beautiful; but perhaps a hold of them could settle in the feeling that Seductress could accept the true fact -- that she was falling in love with someone she had not known for many years.

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Seductress,

There are many boys that lust after you. I only have eyes for the way your hair moves, and the way your every bone curves. There is nothing to say that I can tell. Except I am offering much to see you. I have seen you with Lucifer. I know you know him as I do, but he might tell you things and they are all lies -- do not believe any of them. I only wish to touch you and graze your eyelids until you're the beauty I've always known.

-Healer

Healer,

I care not for the way you speak of Lucifer, he is a fine young man. I have seen you about town and all I have to say is that your skin is as pale as the wither of a white lily in black poison. Others might find it gruesome -- but mother taught me to love all colors -- she is quite hateful, however, and I grew as hateful as hers. Look at me, ranting about silly facts. If you do wish to see me, there might be the midsummer night, there might be one fateful meeting, but only if fate approves.

-Seductress

Seductress,

I have challenged fate and once, I even have unfurled it at the tips of my fingers. I saw you today at the flower garden, pricking your thumb at loose thorns. You left your ribbon behind, the red ribbon that shines everlasting in your hair, tucked away from every single eyes. I wonder if I could graze the red blood off your fingers, it's unnatural for blood as red as yours as red as your eyes, your hair and your ribbon to taint your flawless ivory. Fate can wait. You can make it wait. You're the most surrendered-for princess in this town, all men have eyes for you and all women are jealous. My friend Mandy is jealous even, she looks at you and I can almost see her clench her fists at the beauty you shake. She says it is unfair that you betrothed such beauty, such lively, when she is but an orphan that has worked all her life. You will have to excuse her, as I am forced to excuse Lucifer. However, there is one flaw I should mention of me, one tiny bit you will not like. I do not look at you as a queen to bow upon, I merely wish to rock your hand. I will not follow by your rules as if I am a servant if I become your lover, I only wish to cradle you within in my arms like a sweet, soulless baby I have just had. You may frown upon this, dread, fret, but if you do, then you are truly not one to challenge fate -- it shall come to us.

I have your ribbon if you wish to meet me, I will return it if I can press it against your hair.

For now, I will wrap it around my wrist and keep it there to remind me of the always color of your hair.

-Healer

Healer,

You are unlike any man I have ever known. None have ever sent me letters, or talked to me like this -- they merely wish to soak into my beauty. But I will challenge fate, because I will not fret. I will laugh, and you will hold my hand. There is one flaw I have not mentioned.

My mother does not know of my ways. She does not know that I have become the lover of this town, she does not know I am a common whore against the eyes of hungry, petty luring men. I am promised to someone very important and respected in this town.

Promised. I shall marry him the day I was born, and I shall raise two children with him.

But if you wish to challenge fate as do I--then we will overcome it. I have enclosed one ring for you-- I will wear the other.

If we overcome fate, Lucifer will never set a hand on my ribbon.

-Seductress

~

It was the same dream, over and over again. The whisper in her ears --"Your in danger."

"Why ever would you say that?" she would ask, and he would tip her chin forward and kiss her with the lips that she had been tempted by ever since her fourteenth birthday, the lips that had taken her innocence once away. His hand poured over her breasts, resting on her bosom and the peek of her cleavage gently, sliding back and forth, back and forth, back and --

--forth, swish, swish, down the dress. She gasped, whimpered, grasped the feeling within her palm, wanting to savor it forever everlasting. Nothing could fail the tremor, the leap of her heart as he pushed her sideways -- she was fourteen again, and she was a bad, wicked little girl--

--let someone punish me, oh I deserve punishment--

But something was wrong. These weren't Draco's lips that were upon her, touching her creamy, freckled-skin. His kiss was different, nothing like this -- Draco kissed with more of a furious compassion, a will to fight her, a will to make her an equal as him, a way to blend into him in breathless grazes of her skin and the kisses that could melt fire into it's dried, ember, engraved ashes.

This was different.

It was as if he was pushing his tongue down her throat to retrieve something, to suck something out alive, stained with blood but still jerking in her throat -- but what?

The bedroom door opened with a slam.

"Oh Draco," she cried. "Thank God, he's murdering--"

And then, it ended.

The dream ended, like any other nightmare would, from a scream that faded away.

Except, with a scream, Ginny choked on it.

Because something else was already occupying her mouth.

~

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End file.
